During crisis, the community depends upon responders for help to contain the crisis, evacuate citizens, provide emergency care and supplies, and generally protect residents from additional harm. Responders generally live in or near the areas they serve with their families and relatives. Without a community program that cares for and helps responders' families during times of crisis, responders often must tend first to the protection of their families before they can protect the community.

A simple but dependable local program developed by private sector and community organizations to care for the families of identified responders- as well as their vulnerable/special needs relatives - can give the responders the confidence and security to attend to their duties immediately without the need to first care for their families and their safety.

The Crisis Response Officer (CRO) can be a point of contact within a local company or community organization for each responder family and their relatives, creating a buddy system that uses employees assigned to specific responder family members with pre-determined evacuation and care plans. These family members can be located through the Virtual Surge Depot (VSD) so that both EMS managers and CROs can determine that they have been accounted for before, during and after a crisis.